Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation Promotional Video

Thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive!

Dear Mattie Blog Readers,

It means a great deal to us that you take the time to write to us and to share your thoughts, feelings, and reflections on Mattie's battle and death. Your messages are very meaningful to us and help support us through very challenging times. To you we are forever grateful. As my readers know, I promised to write the blog for a year after Mattie's death, which would mean that I could technically stop writing on September 9, 2010. However, at the moment, I feel like our journey with grief still needs to be processed and fortunately I have a willing support network still committed to reading. Therefore, the blog continues on. If I should find the need to stop writing, I assure you I will give you advanced notice. In the mean time, thank you for reading, thank you for having the courage to share this journey with us, and most importantly thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive.

As Mattie would say, Ooga Booga (meaning, I LOVE YOU)! Vicki and Peter

The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation celebrates its 7th anniversary!

The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundationwas created in the honor of Mattie.

We are a 501(c)(3) Public Charity. We are dedicated to increasing childhood cancer awareness, education, advocacy, research and psychosocial support services to children, their families and medical personnel. Children and their families will be supported throughout the cancer treatment journey, to ensure access to quality psychosocial and mental health care, and to enable children to cope with cancer so they can lead happy and productive lives. Please visit the website at: www.mattiemiracle.com and take some time to explore the site.

We have only gotten this far because of people like yourself, who have supported us through thick and thin. So thank you for your continued support and caring, and remember:

.... Let's Make the Miracle Happen and Stomp Out Childhood Cancer!

A Remembrance Video of Mattie

Random Shots of Mattie, Family and Friends

June 13, 2017

Tuesday, June 13, 2017 -- Mattie died 404 weeks ago today. Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2008. Only weeks after Mattie completed kindergarten. Sitting next to him was his "girlfriend" Charlotte. The same girl he proposed to in our car and gave her a plastic ring! They brought out the best in each other. Though Charlotte is 15 years old, she is very thoughtful with Mattie Miracle and is always a significant teen fundraiser each year at our Walk. It was Charlotte's family that created the Mattie J. Brown Scholarship Fund at Mattie's school, so that his legacy would always live on. To me this scholarship doesn't only memorialize Mattie, but it is a constant reminder to me of the beautiful friendship these two children had with one another. Quote of the day: Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man. ~ Arthur SchopenhauerTODAY'S BLOG FOCUSES ON THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF SUNNY.......Sunny had a vet appointment today. This is his third one with this doctor since we adopted him last September. When we adopted Indie and Sunny, we changed veterinarian practices. I liked our former vet but she was moving out of the area and when I asked her who I should go to, she recommended this other practice. It is always challenging to start with a new practice, but I really like Sunny and Indie's doctor. She is very personable, loves animals, and has a good rapport with them. Sunny needed vaccines and blood work today and though these aren't fun things to do, she did them effortlessly with Sunny. I would describe Sunny as a good and compliant patient. At least once he was in the exam room. In the waiting room, he was VERY anxious and whining. He seemed VERY bothered that a cat was in a cage! He wanted this cat out and about. It was fascinating to watch, as he kept walking over to the cat's cage to check on her. Many dogs came into the waiting room too, and each one of them was intrigued by Sunny. Sunny is like a grand ambassador and gets along with ALL dogs. Feisty ones, aggressive ones, and of course easy going ones. Sunny greeted every dog and then continued his ambassador tour right outside the building where the vet is located. I brought two masses to the attention of the vet today. I believe in being proactive about issues and health. Now the vet could have dismissed me, but she examined the mass on his eye lid and the one on his hind leg. She feels confident they are benign tumors, but wants them both removed in the Fall when he gets his teeth cleaned. She feels giving him anesthesia once will be better for him rather than multiple times. Some vets would have taken the wait and see approach with these masses, but I like her conservative approach and her desire to work with facts about the issue. She says that masses on the eye lid usually continue to grow and if it gets larger, she won't be able to remove the mass without it affecting his ability to close his eye. NO THANK YOU! It is coming out.

1 comment:

Margy Jost
said...

Vicki,

The picture of Mattie & Charlotte is beautiful. It is a testimony to a strong friendship, even young, that she helps with Mattie Miracle!

I am so glad you have a proactive Vet. I would want those things taken off. Yet, I know there are those who have no trouble with them" wait & see " approach. I am not a fan!! Sunny is an Ambassador. His friendly demeanor, I Am sure is appealing to other animals and their owners!!

Number of Visitors Since October 12th, 2008

The Mattie Miracle Logo!!

Contact Information

GuideStar PLATINUM

We're On Amazon Smiles!

Mattie Passed Away

With heavy hearts, Peter and I said goodbye to our precious Mattie when he died on September 8, 2009 at 7:15am. He fought death for five hours, but after being given propofol, he finally fell into a deep sleep. My hunch is he did not want to say good-bye to Peter and I, and it took massive amounts of drugs to end his suffering.

Mattie in Summary

Diagnosis timetable: July 23, 2008 - tumor in the right humerus; August 1, 2008 - tumor in the left humerus; August 6, 2008 - tumors in the right femur and left radius. On August 6, Mattie was officially diagnosed with Multifocal Synchronous Osteosarcoma.Tumor Resection and Limb salvage surgeries (repiphysis): on October 20, 2008 and November 12, 2008.Percentage of Necrosis: 60% in right humerus; 80% in left humerus; 100% in left radius; 2% in right femur.Chemo began on August 8, 2008: High Dose Methotrexate, Cisplatin, Doxorubicin; Ifosfamide, and Etoposide were added to the treatment protocol on December 1, 2008; MTP-PE was added to the treatment protocol on January 12, 2009.Chest CT scans post surgery:December 5, 2008 – four 3mm lung lesions; January 8, 2009 – CT scans reveal no change in the lung lesions; March 19, 2009 - CT scans reveal slight changes in two of the lesions. With potential increases in size of up to 1-2 mm per lesion. On June 5, 2009, CT scans at 1.5mm cuts (so very refined cuts) revealed that Mattie's lung lesions doubled in size since January. The four lesions are now 8-9mm in size, indicating that Chemotherapy is not working.Median Sternotomy: June 15th, 2009, removed 9 lesions, four in the left lung and five in the right lung. We do know that two of the lesions had calcified indicating bone material was present. This confirms that the bone cancer has metastasized to the lungs and that Mattie's chemotherapy was not effective at fighting the cancer in his lungs.PET Scan: There appears to be a possible variant (i.e something abnormal) in the lower left femur, but as of now it is too small to determine what it really is. Normally, one would biopsy this, but the location is difficult as it involves the growth plate, and with lung surgery imminent, and Mattie just being off of chemo, the advice we're getting is to wait and watch, and to see what it looks like during the next scan.Echocardiogram: Mattie has a reduced LVEF (Left Ventricle Ejection Fraction), which in layman terms means that his heart is not pumping with its normal level of pressure. Although it is not at a dangerous level, the doctors do want to monitor it with a follow-up echo in a few months to determine if this is a temporary impairment or if long term damage has been done.

Washington Post Article on The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation!!

An article on Vicki and Pete and the Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation ran on July 24, 2010, in the Washington Post's Metro section.

Many thanks to Post Reporter Rick Rojas, for doing a great story on us! To read the article on the Post's website, click HERE

Washington Post Article on Reach the Day and Mattie's Blog

In the July 2nd, 2009 edition of the Washington Post, our story and our blog were briefly mentioned in an article regarding CureSearch's Reach The Day event, held June 22-23, 2009 on Capitol Hill.

Click HERE for a link to read the article on the Washington Post's web site.

H.R. 2109: CHILDHOOD CANCER SURVIVORSHIP RESEACH AND QUALITY OF LIFE ACT OF 2009

This video highlights some advocacy efforts to provide more effective drugs for childhood cancer patients and access to better care for survivors. This link also provides information on how to contact your representatives to urge them to support this bill.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQY8vxO_quU

Mattie's Channel 9 Story

To watch the YouTube version of Mattie's video, click Mattie's News Story
or
to Read the actual story on the 9NewsNow site, click HERE

Mattie's Situation

Mattie Had Bone CancerMattie had a bone cancer called Osteosarcoma. The diagnosis was: multi-focal, synchronous osteosarcoma. He had four tumors in his extremities: the upper portions of the right and left Humerus, which is the bone that connects the shoulder to the two lower arm bones (the radius and ulna), the lower (distal) left radius (right near the wrist) and the lower (distal) right femur (just above the knee joint). Although commonly found in adults, this type of bone cancer is very, very rare when found in six year old children. Mattie started chemotherapy on Thursday, August 7, 2008, consisting of several five week cycles containing five types of drugs (Doxorubicin, Cisplatin, high dose Methotrexate, Ifosfamide and Etopicide). After the second cycle Mattie underwent a surgery (Oct. 20) to remove the tumor in his right humerus, and then a second surgery (Nov. 12) to remove the other three tumors. Mattie had three prostheses (both arms and the leg) that use the Repiphysis technology. We also tried an experimental drug called L-MTP-PE in the effort to give Mattie the best fighting chance of survival. It's a shame it wasn't enough.

All of our Family and Friends have done so many wonderful and amazing things for us to help Mattie. For that we are forever grateful. We want you all to know that we cannot thank you enough for these things and your selfless acts of kindness. We cannot adequately express how much your love, caring and devoted attention to Mattie meant to us. God Bless each and every one of you.

We made a deal from the beginning with Mattie to never lie to him about his situation, and we talked him through each step of the way. Mattie knew he had "some bad bugs" in some of his bones, and he knew that the drugs he was given were to kill the bugs, and the surgeries were meant to remove the bugs from his body. Mattie even requested from Dr. Bob Henshaw (who performed the surgery) "to let me keep a bone" once the procedures were over. Mattie did get several pictures of the procedures which he always thought were really neat.

This kind of statement only furthered our immense respect and astonishment that we had for Mattie and his emotional intellect, intelligence, and maturity. It was amazing that a six year-old could so quickly rationalize and embrace a situation and keep such a strong and positive attitude going, when his parents were a pair of emotional and physical trainwrecks. The irony is that Mattie gave us our strength to go on at a time when we should have been giving him his strength to fight.

Mattie's life during the 13 months of fighting cancer was not a normal one, even though we did whatever was humanly possible to make it as normal as possible. Fortunately, we have good friends who helped us get to the right doctors and to the program at the Lombardi Center in what everyone says was record-breaking time, who embraced us and helped us with what was unquestionably the greatest challenge of our lives. Of course, without our family and good friends, life would be a whole lot tougher than it is right now, so for those of you who are reading this, all we can say is Thank You and We Love You. God Bless.